The GM firms present themselves as operating out of futuristic laboratories and hi-tech greenhouses in order to provide farmers with innovative crops with valuable new traits. But in reality, all the leading GM firms developed out of the chemical industry and the three biggest seed companies (Monsanto/Bayer, Corteva and Syngenta) are also three of the biggest global pesticide producers.

Monsanto, for instance, was established as the world's biggest seed company well before Bayer, already the world's second largest agrochemical company, purchased it in 2018. Monsanto was also a leader in the global herbicide (weed killer) market. The fact that it owned over 80% of all GM seeds planted globally helps to account for why around 90% of GM seeds have been engineered to be resistant to herbicides. And Bayer/Monsanto's main GM product remains crops resistant to glyphosate - the active ingredient in their herbicide Roundup.

Having operated for many decades as major chemical corporations, and in the last few decades additionally as biotechnology companies, Bayer and Monsanto have a significant historical legacy. This makes it possible to examine their records when it comes to issues of public and employee safety and protection, regulatory compliance, customer care, etc.

This is particularly relevant to the regulation of GM crops and their associated pesticides, as regulation is almost entirely dependent on trust, with regulators normally basing their assessments of environmental risk and food safety on data from unpublished studies provided to them in confidence by the GM firms that developed the products.

Below we look in detail at the corporate character and record to date of both Bayer and Monsanto. The picture that emerges is not reassuring.

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